History of Education: The Prussian School System Control Methodology

Education: The American Way

Don’t let the title fool you. This video is actually about how government-run schooling contributed to the rise of socialism, imperialism and eventually fascism in Germany between the 1890s and 1940s.

Critical Thinking Question:
In school we are led to believe that we are all living in an ideal vision of what society should be…
But who’s vision is it?
And what were their ideals?

Based on podcast 025: The Wayhttp://schoolsucks.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-01-19T07_02_04-08_00

Further Reading:

Prussian Education System (foundations of 20th century models of education)

http://feltd.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/the-prussian-german-educational-system/

The political motivations of the King of Prussia

Seeking to replace the controlling functions of the local aristocracy, the Prussian court attempted to instill social obedience in the citizens through indoctrination. Every individual had to become convinced, in the core of his being, that the King was just, his decisions always right, and the need for obedience paramount.^{[citation needed]}

The schools imposed an official language, to the prejudice of ethnic groups living in Prussia. The purpose of the system was to instill loyalty to the Crown and to train young men for the military and the bureaucracy. As the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a key influence on the system, said, "If you want to influence [the student] at all, you must do more than merely talk to him; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will." ^[1]